Social InSecurity; BushÂ's $2 Trillion Boondoggle.
By James Boyne
Social Security has always been such a dull, boring, lifeless issue. It was always just all about numbers, numbers, and numbers. The only people who really ever cared about it were the elderly; the people with the gray hair, the people who actually got the monthly Social Security checks; the people who depended upon it for food money, rent money, and some money to hopefully pay for a trip to the doctor and to renew their prescription medication to ease their aches and pains; their illnesses and ailments.
It was always an issue that concerned the frail, the ill, the crippled, the suffering, the disabled; the people with the false teeth, the brittle bones, and the wrinkled skin.
The elderly, the senior citizens---that cantankerous group of Americans that were riding off into the sunset of life; they were the only oneÂ's who ever cared about Social Security.
There strength is in their numbers. There may be over 40 million of them. No one knows for sure because they wonÂ't answer their door and they routinely throw out the Census Bureau questionnaires in disgust---its too complicated they say, Â"The Government expects you to know who you areÂ"?
There are also tens of millions of Â"almost seniorsÂ"---Americans about to enter that nirvana of lifetime experiences---Â"oldnessÂ". Additionally, there are tens of millions of people that are Â"extended senior citizensÂ"---the large group that should have transitioned to the Â"dearly departedÂ" category, but refuse to depart. All in all, we are talking about a lot of people that are affected by Social Security.
Why is it that we now have young 40-ish looking insurance actuaries in pin stripped suits; slick, fast talking politicians; eloquent sounding but unconvincing senior statesmen; and even our religious leaders all hammering away at the American people as to why we need to Â"change Social Security and allow private savings accountsÂ". Why is everyone so interested in suddenly helping out our senior citizens? What is the motive? Generosity? Kindness? Concern? Worry? Charity? Something is fishy. I smell a rat.
The answer can only be money. No one is really concerned that the Social Security system will fail; that it will become bankrupt; that it will not be there for the elderly in twenty or thirty or forty years. No one really cares if the system will be in the hole by a few trillion dollars or by twenty trillion dollars in the year 2050 AD. WhoÂ's kidding who? What a crock of bull !
No one really cares about the elderly----period.----except for the elderly themselves. Politicians only care about them when it is time to vote. If a politician could pick up a seventy-five-year-old lady and Â"kiss itÂ" just like they pick up a one-year-old infant and Â"kiss itÂ" for a photo-op, they would. Politicians will promise the elderly, the senior citizens, almost anything to get their vote.
Churches donÂ't care, generally, about the elderly either. Half the time, seniors are too sick or frail to even get to church and if one canÂ't get to church than one canÂ't pray to the Lord, and if one canÂ't pray to the Lord in church than one canÂ't drop money in the basket. If you are a senior and can still hobble down to your church for Sunday services than you will be given a Â"yes maÂ'me, thank you maÂ'meÂ" or Â"good morning sir, good to see you sir, God be with youÂ". My grandfather always replied, Â"cut the crap; it ainÂ't a good morning; and God ainÂ't with meÂ". Some churches actually place ads in the local newspapers suggesting that Â"since you are in the twilight of your life, wouldnÂ't it be a nice gesture to give a little money to God in your last will and testamentÂ". What nice touch? I didnÂ't know that God was running a little short of cash.
Well, if the politicians donÂ't care and the churches donÂ't care; who careÂ's about the old, the sick, the frail, and the Â"hunched over crowdÂ"? Your family, right. Well, kind of, if you are lucky. But, they have their own problems----divorces, getting canned from their jobs after 20 years; raising teenagers; their own adult children moving back in with them; health problems of their own; skyrocketing debt; medical bills galore---you know the list. The last thing your family needs is the thought of you moving back in.
So who and what do you have to rely on? Other old people like yourself and -------Social Security. And what does President Bush and the Republicans want to do? They want to screw the whole thing up. They want to Â"reformÂ" Social Security. President Bush wants to make it more secure, more stable, and more financially solvent.
President Bush and his band of economic and financial experts is the same crowd that took a $500 billion surplus in 2000 and turned it into a $500 billion deficit---a difference of $1 trillion---in four short years.
President Bush, under his keen economic leadership has brought us a nation that has 55 million working Americans who canÂ't afford any health insurance for their families; 9 million Americans who are unemployed and canÂ't find work; 11 million more Americans called the Â"long term unemployedÂ" who are discouraged and have given up even looking for work; a million good paying American jobs that have been outsourced to Â"cheap labor poolsÂ" in India and China where workers make a dollar a day, work 60 hours a week, and have no benefits whatsoever; and a nation where 3 million illegal immigrants enter our country by merely walking across the border to corporate American greed for cheap Mexican laborers that will work for below minimum wage, with no health benefits, no overtime pay, no worker injury insurance protection, and yes--- no Social Security.
This same President who wants to lead the charge and Â"reformÂ" Social Security is the same President who has presided over an economy that has seen over 6 million individuals and small business owners declare bankruptcy during his tenure of the last four years. Many of these bankruptcies are due to the crushing burden of medical expenses.
This is the same President to preside over the design, the passage of, and the implementation of one of the biggest hoaxes ever played upon senior citizens---the Medicare Prescription Drug Reform Plan. This is the plan that was going to cost $350 billion over five years and was touted as making affordable prescription drugs for all seniors. After the plan was passed the estimate rose to $550 billion---and the latest figure is $720 billion over ten years. The clincher is that the prescription drug prices that the Federal Government must pay are non-negotiable prices that are set by the drug companies themselves---extortion and price gouging at its finest. The biggest financial windfall the drug companies have ever seen and the largest waste of taxpayer money ever seen. And the plan is riddled with limitations, restrictions, exclusions, exceptions, complexities and complicated rules and special stipulations.
The Medicare Prescription Drug Reform Plan doesnÂ't go fully into affect until 2006, the purpose of which must be to get more of the elderly to keel over and die before they ever get to use the plan. A $720 billion boondoggle. And the drug companies just keep raising their prices on drugs that Â"might save yaÂ" but, Â"might kill yaÂ". That sure is reassuring. Its like a craps shoot.
This is the same President who asked for $89 billion; and then another $25 billion; and then another $82 billion; but has in reality already spent over $300 billion on Afghanistan where our Air Force practices bombing caves and on Iraq where our Army practices house-to-house fighting where no foreign army exists. And President Bush doesnÂ't want the war money counted in the Federal Budget----it might look bad.
This is the same President who gave back $350 billion in a tax giveback to the mainly wealthy. I donÂ't remember mobs of people in the streets demanding the $350 billion back so one must wonder why Bush would take $350 billion out of the coffers of the Treasury and give it back at the exact same time that he was going to need over $300 billion for a war, $720 billion for a prescription drug plan, and now $2 trillion to Â"reformÂ" Social Security. The numbers are breath taking, arenÂ't they? The logic defies logic. This is the man who is going to Â"reformÂ" Social Security and fix it.
President Bush, out of the sheer kindness of his heart, wants to take Social Security and make it the most insecure Federal retirement program that has ever existed. He should rename it Social Insecurity.
Why does the President want to do this? Because there is big, big, big money in this----for someone. LetÂ's face it; nothing gets done in Washington; nothing gets by the White House unless there is big money in it for someone. Politicians donÂ't do things out of the kindness of their heart. Politicians do things to get elected; to get re-elected; to bring Federal programs and Federal money into their home states and their districts; and they do things to reward individuals and corporations that have contributed to their campaigns.
Pick up your phone right now and see if you ever get to speak to your elected representative? Write a letter to your Congressman, or Senator or to the President himself and see if you ever get anything other than a form letter, about ten weeks later, in response? I guess they are all just too damn busy----with something else.
Once these politicians start tampering with Social Security, next they will be taking away the driving licenses of seniors, and then the politicians will claim that the elderly shouldnÂ't have the right to vote because they are so confused anyway; and before you know it us seniors will all be railroaded onto reservations with the Indians, never to be heard from again. And donÂ't tell me it canÂ't happen. There used to be 12 million Indians in America and now they are down to a few hundred thousand and most of them live on reservations out somewhere in the Red States.
So to seniors, and to all Americans I say, Â"DonÂ't take the baitÂ"!
If you want to figure out who will really benefit by changing Social Security and by allowing those so-called Â"private accountsÂ" or the new euphemism called Â"personal accountsÂ" all you have to do is Â"follow the money trailÂ" as they say.
Who will actually benefit by allowing Â"private accountsÂ"? Are private accounts designed for the hot shots, the risk takers, for the savvy investor, and the up and comer? Or are Social Security personal accounts designed to pump trillions of dollars into the financial services industry---into the banking industry, investment firms, brokerage houses, financial planning associates, stock salesmen, bond salesmen, annuity planners, etc., etc. Are we all going to be besieged by dozens of telemarketers every night telling us what to do with our money? Will our mailboxes overflow with slick pamphlets and flyers and invitations to attend investment seminars in the basements of our local churches? Why the hell doesnÂ't everyone just leave Social Security alone? It may need fixinÂ' but not by the crew that currently occupies the White House.
My own guess is that if there werenÂ't a dime to be made by changing Social Security there wouldnÂ't be a single damned politician interested in it. If it were going to go down the tubes in thirty years not a damned elected representative would be interested in even talking about it unless there was a trillion dollar bonanza waiting to be plucked from the money tree that American suckers represent. By changing Social Security to allow private personal investment accounts the doors are being swung wide open to every slick sales pitch; to every snake oil salesmen; and to every con artist and scheme that can be heaped upon the baffled, bewildered senior citizens, baby boomers, the X-generation, the Y-generation, the yuppies, the yippies, and the guppies as well as the metro-sexuals, the NASCAR crowd, the soccer MomÂ's, the Security MomÂ's and the followers of Jesus Himself. There are trillions of dollars to be made but it will be off the backs of the elderly.
Just look at what the pharmaceutical industry has done to our seniors. Prescription drugs that claim to save your life, instead----kill you. Prescription drugs that are so astronomically priced that seniors are forced to board buses and travel en mass and make Â"drug runsÂ" to Canada and Mexico where they can buy the exact same drugs made by the exact same American manufacturer for one third of the price charged in America.
Just look at the credibility of the investment institutions that will want our young people, our middle aged families, and those approaching retirement, to invest. An example---Mr. Richard Grasso, the recently deposed head of the revered New York Stock Exchange, a quasi-public investment institution was paying himself a salary of $156 million a year----until he got caught (with his hand in the cookie jar). He was also paying his secretary (today it is called Executive Assistant) $240,000 a year and his two drivers were each getting a salary of $120,000 a year. I must be missing the logic of this but if I invest in stock that gets sold on the NY Stock Exchange is this where part of my investment dollar goes----to support this kind of crap?
Is this what President Bush wants to turn Social Security into----a crap shoot where trillions of invested dollars are skimmed off the top by those Â"in the knowÂ", by the well connected, and by the bigwigs, and by all the other sharks circling the pool of money that will be sitting there for the pickinÂ'?
And now today we hear that on behalf of the PresidentÂ's Social Security plan the big guns are going to be unleashed. The group that brought us the famed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are going to spend $28 million on trying to convince the American public that President BushÂ's Social Security Plan is the work of God Himself and that anyone who stands in its way is a traitor to America; is against life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; doesnÂ't like Mom and apple pie; and must be one of those damned, commie liberals. Apparently, the new target of malicious slander will be AARP because it is standing in the way of President BushÂ's new Social Security Reform Plan----it has the gall to be against it. AARP smells something fishy. It smells a rat too, apparently.
I think the Republicans and President BushÂ's new slogan should be Â"give me your tired, your sick, your poor, your hungry, your elderly------and your moneyÂ". ItÂ's the Â"new compassionate ConservatismÂ"---the GOP of the 21st century.
James Boyne
James Boyne is a regular contributor to opednews.com and his many articles can be accessed here.
Contribute $$ to OpEdNews
A
